We live in a condo in a small beach town. As much as I appreciate the summer visitors and their contribution to our local economy, I really like our beaches after Labor Day! You can tell summer is over by the lack of boats in our parking lot!

And returning to local restaurants is much easier now! So we’ll have the beaches to ourselves and in just a few short months, the cycle begins again! In the meantime, we’ll enjoy the beaches, the locals, the sunsets – and concentrate on expanding our All Tide Up brand and products!

We recently hosted our best friends for almost a week here at Mexico Beach. A number of weeks ago one of them visited for a few days and we were able to share our life now with her. It’s not perfect but it’s the season of life we’re currently experiencing and enjoying! Most of our evenings are filled with scenes like this:

Living in a beach town that has year round residents of about 1,000 has it’s benefits! Of course the population swells beginning in March and will last until September but that’s ok.

For the past 27 months we’ve traveled every weekend or at least a portion of it to Tallahassee, Florida. First we commuted from Inverness until September 2012. Then for 7 months we made the commute from Mexico Beach. That season of our life was spiritually encouraging and fulfilling. But I’ve got to admit it was physically draining and not to mention the miles in the car and the time in the car. We calculated at one point that we spent literally a month (yes, one month) of our lives just commuting!

Cyndi and I both feel we were doing exactly what God wanted us to do during that season. We experienced lots of cool things, met some unbelievable people, led some great discussions, had some life changing conversations and like to think we were used by God in other’s lives as well.

That season has faded away and now we are taking a break. A time to refresh physically, emotionally and spiritually. This may be the first time in a very long time we are embracing a season in life like this. Without going into all the minute details, we know God has blessed us and placed us exactly where He wants us to be once again. We know He’s going to use us again in some incredible ways! We’ve learned that it’s not about being a Christian but instead it’s really about being a follower of Christ and that impacts the way we approach life!

In this season, there’s going to be lots of opportunities to see things like this:

And who knows? Maybe our venture into All Tide Up will continue to take off and will open other opportunities for us. In the meantime, there will continue to be days like this: